“Mr. DiStefano?”
“Yes?”
“There’s … something else,” Scott began. “There’s something you need to know … something strange that’s been going on up here.”
Scott held the microphone as his mind raced through the problem.
What do I say now? Do I just blurt out the possibility that we might have an activated thermonuclear weapon aboard that could incinerate millions of people in the next few seconds and vaporize Washington, D.C., in the process?
“Go ahead, Captain, I’m listening.”
“Okay, bear with me, please. This is very odd.”
APPROACH CONTROL FACILITY, WASHINGTON NATIONAL AIRPORT—4:20 P.M. EDT
Pete Cooke said nothing to the controller as he listened to the new Flitephone conversation between ScotAir 50 and the FBI. He slid into an extra chair as quietly as possible and stayed out of the way behind the controller’s console as he began scribbling notes. The fact that FBI headquarters and an assistant director were involved raised the stakes even more.
But why did they want him to go to Pax River? The explanation had left Pete stunned.
My God, plutonium! No wonder the FBI is working the case.
Pete wrote down the names of those aboard as they were being passed to the FBI. The name of Dr. Linda McCoy seemed familiar, but from where he wasn’t sure. For a few seconds he was so absorbed in trying to place her that the captain’s words about “something strange” nearly passed unnoticed.
The captain was describing a pallet of cargo he had aboard—a metal container and a screen displaying a message the captain slowly repeated word for word.
WHAT?
Pete pressed the earpiece deeper into his ear, straining to hear every word as the pilot described the warning on the screen.
He reread his hastily scribbled notes, wishing his handwriting had not deteriorated so much in previous years.
“WARNING! The fact that this device is now located within the physical confines of the Pentagon has been detected and locked in memory. ANY ATTEMPT TO MOVE THIS DEVICE FROM ITS PRESENT LOCATION—OR ANY ATTEMPT TO DEACTIVATE—WILL RESULT IN INSTANT DETONATION!”
Detonation! My God, what does that mean?
Pete stood up and moved silently behind the controller, mentally comparing the position of ScotAir 50 on the screen with the approximate position of the Pentagon.
They were significantly different! The aircraft might have passed over the Pentagon, but it was holding between eight and eighteen miles away now, and the thing in the cargo compartment of ScotAir 50 didn’t seem to know it.
Pete sat back down, his mind racing: Suspected plutonium … a message threatening detonation … the FBI is involved … a large metal container on a cargo aircraft …
My God in Heaven, they’ve got a live nuke flying around over D.C.!
The temptation to run to the nearest phone and call his editor was strong, but was it the right thing to do? The story was breaking in front of him, but the next edition of his newspaper was fourteen hours away. This was probably one for the broadcasters, but it was highly likely that he was the only reporter in the country who had any idea what was going on just a few miles away.
But what did he know?
Pete could feel his heartbeat accelerate. It was suddenly very warm in the otherwise slightly cool control room.
Suppose this is a test, and I panic everyone in the country into thinking there’s some sort of nuclear bomb flying over the seat of government of the United States. Maybe I’ve missed something.
The consequences of getting it wrong were too thunderous and frightening to contemplate.
The voice of one of ScotAir’s pilots coming from the controller’s overhead speaker cut through the shock, reaffirming that at least part of the conversation he’d overheard had been real.
“Ah, Washington Approach, ScotAir Fifty. Sir, we need an immediate vector to Patuxent River Naval Air Station, and the latest weather there, if you have time.”
The controller shot a questioning glance back at his guest. Pete Cooke moved the chair forward and tried to sound normal.
“The FBI’s ordered them to land there,” he explained simply.
The controller nodded and turned back to the scope as he picked up a tie-line to arrange the clearance and get the weather.
“Roger, ScotAir Fifty. I have your request. Stand by, please.”
ABOARD SCOTAIR 50—4:25 P.M. EDT
The wail of a new electronic warning horn from the cargo compartment reached the cockpit just as the revised clearance to Pax River was coming through. Doc remained at the controls with Jerry backing him up in the engineer’s seat as Linda led the way to the back with Scott and Vivian following. This time the noise was many decibels higher in volume, and different in tone.
Linda swung around the rear of the container and pressed forward to read the screen as Scott approached on her heels, almost losing his balance as the 727 bounced through the turbulent air.
She touched the screen and the horn stopped instantly.
“The screen is changing,” she said.
Scott pressed in beside her to read the message.
WARNING! THIS WEAPON IS NOW FULLY ARMED. ALL ANTI-DISARMING SAFEGUARDS ARE ACTIVATED. ONE PERSON—MRS. VIVIAN HENRY—POSSESSES THE ABILITY TO DISARM THIS WEAPON, PROVIDED SHE DOES SO IN PERSON WITHIN THE NEXT FIFTEEN MINUTES. IF NOT DEACTIVATED WITHIN FIFTEEN MINUTES, FINAL COUNTDOWN SEQUENCE WILL BEGIN.
The symbols 00:15:00 appeared and began counting backward.
Scott motioned Vivian over and she, too, pressed forward to read the words—which changed once again.
THE PRESENCE OF VIVIAN HENRY HAS BEEN DETECTED.
She jumped back. “How? How does it know I’m here?” Her voice was alarmed and almost indignant. Linda McCoy moved to her side and took her arm to calm her down. “He could … it could … be guessing.”
A deep male voice boomed through the cargo cabin without warning, causing Vivian to feel trapped and doomed.
“Vivian, as the screen says, I can detect your presence. Are you curious as to how?”
Vivian gasped audibly as her left hand flew to her mouth, her eyes wide with fear.
Linda glanced at Scott, who looked at the container.
“There’s a large speaker down there, I guess,” he said. “That’s either a tape or a computerized voice.”
Linda turned to Vivian. “Is that your husband’s voice?”
She nodded, breathing hard, as the voice began again, full of sarcastic expression and oily self-confidence. If it’s a computer synthesizer, Linda concluded, it was very advanced.
“Step forward, Vivian, my dear, up to the screen. If the people gathered here want you to disarm this weapon, and I’m sure they do, all you have to do is enter some numbers. It’s a simple task. Even a brainless idiot like you can do it.”
Vivian remained rooted to the spot.
The computerized voice resumed with an angrier tone.
“STEP FORWARD, VIVIAN! I know that’s you. The pacemaker your doctor implanted in 1991 was modified by me. It contains a special transponder so I could always locate you electronically. I know you’re here, and I’ll know if you try to leave, and if you try to leave, I’ll detonate this device instantly.”
“It’s a digitalized voice, Vivian!” Scott said.
Vivian seemed transfixed, her hand over her mouth.
“It’s not him, Vivian,” Linda added. “It’s a thing your husband programmed.”
Vivian pulled away from Linda and squared her shoulders, then moved slowly back toward the screen. When she was within a foot, the voice resumed.
“Vivian Henry, you are the last chance every computer, database, telephone and communications switching center, and every other electronic circuit within two thousand miles has of remaining functional. If you screw this up, you’ll doom Washington, D.C., the Pentagon, Washington National Airport, Arlington, and the economy of the United States to ruin. But to disarm this dev
ice, simply reach in, put your hand on the keypad beneath the screen, and key in our old four-digit PIN number from our joint banking account.”
Vivian slowly inserted her hand, the familiar PIN numbers running through her mind over and over. Her stomach was twisted up in fear, and her hands were shaking, but she forced herself to push each number deliberately.
Linda McCoy stood a few feet away wondering what Rogers Henry had been trying to accomplish. If the threat was real, and if he was going to permit it to be disarmed, why the game? Why force his ex-wife to remember an old PIN number with the penalty for mistake being a nuclear detonation?
Why, indeed, unless he was toying with her.
“VIVIAN!” Linda yelled, starting toward her. “STOP!”
“What?” The final number had already been keyed as she turned toward Linda.
“He’s setting you up to get it wrong!”
An ear-splitting blast of electronic sounds filled the compartment, followed by a new small beeping sound and the sarcastic digitalized voice of Rogers Henry once again.
“You entered the wrong PIN number, Vivian, so the countdown to detonation will now begin. This whole thing is your fault, Vivian.
Vivian turned back toward the device with an overwhelming feeling of rage. He had done it to her again! Even from the grave, he had set her up to take the blame for everything that went wrong, no matter how obvious the ploy. She felt a guttural scream begin in the back of her throat as she flung herself at the thing and pounded it with her fists.
“NO! NO, NO, NO, NO, NO!”
Linda McCoy moved toward her. “Vivian!”
“One-six-five-five! I got it right! I punched it in right, you son of a bitch!”
“If you hadn’t left me, Vivian, there would have been better ways to introduce this weapon, and better ways to punish the fools in the federal government who tried to prevent the building of this weapon. Oh, by the way, say hello to Medusa. This sample proof-of-concept version is a twenty-megaton-yield nuclear device, specially built by me. Just in case anyone has any question about what’s happening, let me make it clear: The U.S. military canceled my project, now, thanks to my stupid ex-wife, I’m going to cancel the rotten core of the U.S. military, and the nation can start over. The generals have precisely three hours and thirty minutes from this moment to evacuate Washington and the twenty-five-mile radius this weapon will destroy. If there’s immediate compliance, up to one million lives can be saved, although I fully expect Medusa to kill millions more, most of them, no doubt, useless bureaucrats. And, of course, there will be no way to protect against the Medusa Wave this will create, nor prevent at least a million more deaths from radiation poisoning in the next few months. Perhaps future generations will thank you, Vivian, for stupidly triggering Medusa. After all, the Pentagon and all of Washington, D.C., has outlived its usefulness. Think of this as a very effective way to reduce the size of the federal government.”
Scott and Linda moved in on either side of Vivian, taking her arms and moving her back, away from the embodiment of Rogers Henry, as the voice began again.
“I detect you have moved a short distance away, Vivian. If you move more than fifteen feet away, detonation will occur instantly, and you will take a million more innocent people with you who might otherwise be saved. You will remain here and die in less than three hours and thirty minutes, or you can die trying to walk away and murder more. Your choice, Vivian.”
“Let me sit here. I’ll stay here,” Vivian told them as she sank to the metal floor of the 727.
Scott looked at her in confusion. “You said it was a dummy! A mockup! That’s probably still the case, right?”
Vivian shook her head as Linda knelt beside her, feeling the chill of the cold floor. “I’ll find some blankets, Vivian, if you want to stay here.”
“I have no choice,” she said. “He’s thought of everything. He’s won again. He always said I’d never get away from him. He said he’d kill me. Now he will.”
“Is that true, Vivian, about the pacemaker?” Linda asked.
She nodded. “I have one. The date’s right. A transmitter inside would explain a lot of strange things.”
Scott knelt beside her as well. “Vivian, he’s already made a mistake. He said it would explode if it left the Pentagon. We’re more than eight miles away from the Pentagon and moving constantly. It probably is just a mockup.”
She was staring blankly at the device, but shaking her head in a slow resolute manner.
“That was wishful thinking, I’m afraid. I gave you false hope.”
Linda and Scott looked at each other.
“What do you mean?” Scott managed.
She looked up at the young captain.
“I was married to Rogers Henry for thirty years. In all that time, I never once knew him to bluff.”
NINE
WASHINGTON NATIONAL AIRPORT—4:30 P.M. EDT
Pete Cooke left the Washington Approach Control facility as ScotAir 50 prepared to depart the holding pattern for Patuxent River Naval Air Station. This was a major story, and he needed to be there when the aircraft came down. But how? He needed privacy and a telephone to figure it out, and, he decided, an airline club room would do nicely.
Pete pulled out his membership card and headed for the American Admiral’s Club, the small scanner still firmly plugged in his ear with the frequencies set to the Flitephone channels.
If he decides to start using a cellular telephone up there, I’m screwed! Pete thought. His scanner couldn’t pick up cellular frequencies.
It took only a few minutes on The Wall Street Journal’s 800 line to New York to round up two researchers, his secretary, and another reporter and get them on the same speaker phone. Avoiding the impression that he was becoming paranoid was another matter.
“Someone’s circling D.C. with a live nuclear bomb? But there’s been nothing on the wire, Pete. What’s your source?”
“Things do exist, Hillary, that have not been reported on the wire services. My sources are the actual phone calls between the FBI and the aircraft. I’ve been monitoring them. All of them.”
Pete could hear the murmur of voices back in New York.
“Okay, listen up, everyone,” he began. “This could be nothing, but it could be an incredibly major story I’ve stumbled upon. I need background help immediately. I need anything you can find on a scientist named Rogers Henry. He died two years ago in Miami, Florida, but I have nothing else on him. Wife’s name is Vivian Henry. Also, I need information on a Dr. Linda McCoy. I know nothing about her, either, but her name rings a bell.” He passed the remaining names of those on board just as the Flitephone frequencies came alive again.
“Gotta go. They’re making another phone call from the plane. Call my cellular when you’ve got something.”
FBI HEADQUARTERS, WASHINGTON, D.C.—4:40 P.M. EDT
Tony DiStefano grabbed the proffered receiver and recognized the voice instantly.
“Captain McKay? What’s up?”
“I was just getting ready to leave the holding pattern, sir, when …”
“Kill the ‘sir’ stuff, okay? Call me Tony.”
“Okay. Ah, Tony, the bomb … I don’t know any better way to put this … has started a countdown to detonation. The countdown is at a little less than three hours and thirty minutes. That’s … ah … 8:01 P.M. There’s a recorded voice back there too that says it’s a twenty-megaton weapon that will vaporize everything within a twenty-five-mile radius. You remember what it threatened would happen if it was taken away from the Pentagon?”
“I remember. Remove it, it blows. But you said you were already between eight and eighteen miles away from the Pentagon as you flew that holding pattern. If the bomb was telling the truth, you’d be gone already. Obviously it knows you’ve left the Pentagon’s coordinates.”
“But, Tony, what if the bomb has a tolerance range of, say, twenty miles? If I stay within twenty miles, it’s okay. If I fly twenty-one miles away, it detonate
s. I’m worried about going any farther. It’s talking about killing millions of people and blowing away the entire capital. If this thing goes off while we’re flying, the altitude of the burst will kill even more, and could blind anyone who makes the mistake of looking up.”
“Calm down, Scott. Let’s take this one step at a time.”
“I’m trying to, but this scares the hell out of me. I’m certainly not anxious to die, but if I do, I sure don’t want to be responsible for incinerating a few million people and two hundred years of American history. If we try to fly any farther from here, it may detonate.”
“Whoa, fellow! We’re not even sure it really is a bomb …” Scott’s earlier words finally sank in. “Wait a minute, Scott. What do you mean, it’s started a countdown? Tell me everything that’s happened.”
Tony DiStefano listened to Scott McKay summarize the events in the rear of the 727. He covered the mouthpiece with his hand long enough to whisper to one of the other agents in the room. “This is now a terrorist situation. Understand? We’re classifying this now as domestic nuclear terrorism.”
The sudden force of a high wind gust rattled the windows of the room they were in, causing everyone to look outside. Trees were whipping violently and sheets of rain were striking the windows periodically, announcing the arrival of the hurricane’s leading edge.
Tony DiStefano closed his eyes for a few seconds and thought hard. He couldn’t focus on the potential loss of life. He had to deal with the situation unemotionally.
“Has it said anything more about its position?” he asked.
The pilot’s voice came back instantly. “No. But it is clear now that one of the aims of this maniac Rogers Henry was to torture his wife. She’s back there now, by the device. It says it will detonate if she gets more than fifteen feet away. He’s made her pacemaker into kind of a transponder. It knows where she is.”
“Her pace …” Tony was rubbing his eyes again. “This thing makes a lot of detonation threats, doesn’t it? Scott, it seems less concerned with where it is, than with making sure she’s by it, right?”
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